[aaronatthedoublef]

I made more molasses cookies. I made a double batch to give-away.

It's also a ciabatta week. I usually would cut and bake the whole batch then freeze what I didn't need and thaw. Last batch I tried leaving the dough in the fridge and baking as needed. I did cut and freeze some dough then thaw and shape as needed. That works but not as well and I still need to work out the timing for thawing/shaping/rising. Pulling off and shaping some cold dough really is the best option.

I kept my challah dough in the refrigerator for a month and it still had some rise in it. I did not try eating it because I didn't want to risk making myself sick.

I also have been letting them rise at room temp under a quarter sheet of parchment. This morning I let it rise at room temp inside a tented baking bag. They came out higher so maybe the parchment has been weighing them down?

I made New Haven style pizza but for some reason the dough was really elastic. I took it out of the freezer and let it thaw in the refrigerator then for the last few hours I let it sit on the counter. I will try thawing and rising for longer. This may make it a little more relaxed.

Anyone ever converted from compressed yeast to instant? I have a recipe that calls for .8 oz of compressed yeast. The calculator I found on the web (https://www.omnicalculator.com/food/yeast-converter) says this is 7.5 g.

[aaronatthedoublef]

So cool. I'm going to try and go back and find it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The sour cream cake looks amazing!

I took a class a the New Haven Pizza School this week. It was a birthday gift from Kate. Lots of fun and I learned some good stuff, especially their sauce. It was very simple - just canned tomatoes through the largest size grate in a food mill.

I made my mom's molasses cookies and it was a challah week as well. I always make extra challah and was meeting some college friends for lunch so I brought them each cookies and a loaf of bread. One of them texted me "keep your friends close and your bakers closer." I think I may make that a tee shirt.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting KAF vs. KABC... Over at the BBGA a couple of weeks ago someone ordered a bag of KABC flour and it came from Ardent. It appears King Arthur has outsourced their flour milling now. Are they still a flour company?

I'll be interested in the regenerative flour as well.

Violet and I made oatmeal chocolate chip muffins yesterday (snow day). Kate made them with Violet before and they batter was drier so I up the moisture a bit and shortened the bake time and they're definitely wetter.

Violet wanted to use milk chocolate chips ("they taste better") but the milk chocolate chips we have are bigger and stick to the muffin tins so some of the muffins have not chips. I need to find mini milk chocolate chips.

I need to make my mom's ginger cookies.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi BA,

Have you tried contacting National Bakery and asking them for their recipe? I was looking for a recipe for something I had at a bakery in Evanston and they sent it to me. So they might be willing to share.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Joan, the bread looks nice.

Violet and I made cookies from her Duff cookie book. They are Toll House cookies with butterscotch chips and pecans added. We didn't have pecans (no pecan pie this year for Thanksgiving) or butterscotch chips so we used walnuts and milk and semi sweet chocolate chips. They're pretty good but our chocolate chips cookies are better.

I was behind on my bread making but I had ciabatta dough in the fridge when Violet decided she wanted a sandwich for lunch. I had just enough time to bake a few buns and then make her a sandwich even though they weren't quite cool when I cut the first one. But she was happy.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've been trying some things differently. I've been letting my bread dough - challah and ciabatta - sit in the fridge and pulling some off, shaping, raising, and baking. I want to see how long it will last. The challah is going on two weeks and the ciabatta is about a week old.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Very cool Mike! School is closed on Friday so this might be fun for Violet.

There are a million recipes on the web. Where did you find yours?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Today I used KAB bread flour. I want to tame the sour a little. It was really strong after it came out of the freezer.

My deli rye didn't use starter but the recipe calls for creating a levain (I think) of flour, water, and yeast and to let that sit for a few hours to over night. I haven't made this in a while but I typically went between 12-24 hours.

It might be good to keep a strong starter and a mild one.

[aaronatthedoublef]

My middle, Henry, is in his first semester of college and where he is has no meal plan. He does eat some meals out but he has also started cooking! While most things have been successful so far he made a little mistake with the garlic in his meatballs the other day and added two bulbs of garlic instead of two cloves!!! Mike, this would not be a recipe for you and Diane! But, college boys being college boys he and his suite mates ate them.

Violet is starting to cook now. Her first attempt was mac & cheese. It came out pretty well. I made the roux as she had to go to field hockey. It's the first time I ever made a roux. The recipe said to mix with a spoon but it looked like it wasn't coming together so I switched to a whisk and that seemed to give better results.

Our kitchen is a bit challenging for her because she is still only 4'8" or so and the counters and stove are high for her. With baking I can move everything to the kitchen table for mixing and shaping, etc. And the ovens are low.

[aaronatthedoublef]

After several days of mixing my starter became liquid enough to move to a new jar so I did that this morning. Since it was pretty loose I also added 10g BRM ww flour. I think I'll make crackers with it before going to bread.

I also don't call it sourdough because while many use "sourdough" to mean starter with natural yeast instead of commercial, there is a lot of "sourdough" bread here with all commercial yeast, no fermentation, and flavorings added to give it a sour taste. Also, my first sour loaf was deli rye and I didn't use starter but I did give it a long, slow, overnight rise to have some fermentation and develop the sour taste.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks everyone. My starter isn't liquid. It's more sludge. I guess I can add water to it and liquify it or I can pull some out, put it in a fresh jar, and hydrate that.

I'll let everyone know what I do and how it turns out.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike!

[aaronatthedoublef]

The pie looks great Mike. Joan - you are a good friend!

Has anyone experimented with making grain free bread? I have a friend who is trying it with marginal success.

I did not bake this week but Violet did. She made her first cake for my birthday. It came out very nicely. I made the frosting mostly because I wanted to try a new method. I also did the clean up for her so she only had the fun part of baking.

Last week was a challah bake but the temple was locked up on my bake day (Thursday) so I had 15 lbs of dough sitting in the fridge. I came in Sunday and gathered it up and brough it home. Can't waste that much dough. I've given away a few pounds of raw dough and a couple dozen 100g rolls and I still have plenty left. It seems to still have rise as I pull it out of the fridge and make rolls, proof, then bake. I haven't weighed how much is left.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The stand mixer lift is something that looks cool but probably becomes annoying when you really have it. At this point I could toss our stand mixer and just use a hand one for amount I use it. I think I can probably find one powerful enough for cakes and all my bread is done by hand anyway.

The triangle was developed for professional kitchens and then designers tried to transfer it to homes. In a big professional kitchen with lots going on, it may make sense to give multiple people their own workspaces without overlapping, to keep people from crossing paths unnecessarily, etc. But that is not what is in most residential kitchens.

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